NATO headquarters in Brussels hosted last 12-13 October the 11th meeting of the NATO working group on Civil Consultation, Command and Control Board/Spectrum Capability Panel 3 (C3B CaP3). The meeting was co-chaired by Richard Barfoot (NATO C3S1) and Didier Chauveau (Agence Nationale de Fréquences); participating in Portugal’s representation were the Armed Forces General Staff and ANACOM.
The aim of C3B CaP3 in the scope of the Atlantic Alliance’s defence capabilities is to make available sufficient spectrum resources to:
(i) ensure that NATO military forces have sufficient spectrum access to fulfil their mission;
(ii) harmonise military use of radio frequencies among NATO allies;
(iii) cooperate with countries of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council/Partnership for Peace with a view to ensuring identical use of radio spectrum.
Various topics were discussed during the 11th C3B CaP3 meeting, of which the following stand out:
- World Radiocommunication Conferences (WRC)
Regarding the start of preparation work for the upcoming 2019 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-19), the procedures to follow in NATO’s preparation for WRC-19 were determined, along with the tools to use when exchanging information between nations, military priorities/interests with respect to each WRC-19 agenda item and some contacts points/coordinators per agenda topics;
- NATO Joint Frequency Agreement 2014 (NJFA 2014)
This meeting served to discuss two matters associated to NJFA 2014: the degree of implementation of NJFA 2014 (the nations shared with the group how the NJFA was implemented nationally) and formulation of a simplified NJFA (limiting its content to non-sensitive information of public interest);
- Civil/military spectrum sharing
Various frequency bands were detailed with a view to more use based on sharing between military and civil communities. The possibility of using equipment for programme making and special events (PMSE) in the 960-1164 MHz interval shared with defence systems was particularly discussed, along with the possibility of introducing video PMSE in the 2700-2900 MHz spectrum, which is used for radio location-finding, and also possible civil/military sharing of 1427-1452 MHz and 1492-1518 MHz for use by long term evolution – frequency division duplex or time division duplex.
The next C3B CaP3 meeting in civil/military session should take place in March/April 2017 (to be scheduled).
